


It's Okay that We're Dying (but I need to survive)

by tukimecca



Series: Everything that makes me whole (I'll dedicate them all to you) [7]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 23:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9263237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tukimecca/pseuds/tukimecca
Summary: Jaehyun reads mean comments online. Taeyong thinks the world isn't fair.





	

_Believe me when I say it's hard, we'll get through this tonight_  
_And I know one day you and I will be free, to live and die by our own rules,_  
_free, despite the fact that men are fools_  
  
Half Alive - Secondhand Serenade

:::

Jaehyun is not used to feel unloved, uncherished. Jaehyun is used to feel adored, worshipped, showered with praises and affections. Of words that only means good and wishes of well. Of smiles and gratitude, of being appreciated.

Because Jaehyun deserves it, because Jaehyun deserves the whole world from the tiny little planet earth to every single star that littered far away, untouched, unexplored andromeda. Jaehyun shines brighter than them, technicolor of pure heart and goodwill. Jaehyun’s heart is made of gold, probably material even stronger. He can be swallowed by flame but he won’t burn out easily, it takes time, sure, but before they can consume him whole, Jaehyun will always have someone to extinguish the scorching heat, salvage him from fire, and heal him anew so his heart is bruised but patched, and whoever that person is will help Jaehyun until he is fully healed.

Jaehyun doesn’t deserve this, the judging stares, and hard words. Instigation, assumption from people who doesn’t even grasp the whole situation, who had only taken a look as much as Jaehyun let them see.

If Jaehyun is a play director, then the people are audience in the theatre. The stage is empty, safe for one single actor while red, heavy curtain of velvet fall over Jaehyun’s stage obscuring the backstage from view when Jaehyun is giving his other actors last instructions. The actor outside is narrating the story, but maybe the audiences find it too long, they assume that Jaehyun is not ready, they assume the play is boring, they assume it’s all Jaehyun has to offer, so they left, not before giving Jaehyun a chance, not before seeing the grand play Jaehyun has prepared for them.

They left the theatre and bad words in their trail, accusing, belittling. Soon, words will travel, weightless in the wind but heavier than iron pulled by gravity in people’s curious heart. Curious, _treacherous, vile_ hearts, hearts with limbs, long tendrils of dark, thirsty, hopelessly grappling at any single light they can corrupt, turn it, twist it, until they’re as black and hopeless as their blunt yet sharp, jagged claws. Make white, black. Make heaven, hell. Make it so it’s more convenient for their disgusting hearts, make it so it can appease their gluttonous hungers.

Taeyong hates to admit it but he had experienced it himself and was forced to accept that this is simply how the world works. Sympathetic yet uncaring. Kind yet unforgiving.

Words of condolences could mean as little sincerity as much as it holds. Reassuring touch could mean nothing as much as it meant to. There’s a reason why people keep repeating the same thing about his world; it’s tough. You need not only to struggle but fight to survive. It won’t wait for you.

Time does not, the world doesn’t either. It has too many things under its encompassing arms and you are nothing more than a small, atomic particle that construct it. It could lose you, either because you let go or they choose to let you go, yet, it wouldn’t disrupt the grand order of things. You are meaningless to the world just as how the world can be meaningless to you. It works both ways, it’s only fair.

But for Jaehyun, for Jaehyun who is the epitome of kindness and good soul, for Jaehyun whose heart is as vast and bountiful as the ocean that embraces the earth, for Jaehyun whose smile is a little too dazzling for mortal’s eyes, he sincerely wishes the world to be unfair.

It definitely wouldn’t hurt them to wait for Jaehyun, to stop, pauses in their constant rotation until Jaehyun can get back up to the ground after he was thrust down from the edge of the cliff. Until Jaehyun’s heart, shattered then broke with sound of thunderclap, can pieces itself back. Until Jaehyun can sew close the tinniest crack between his lacerated hearts.

The world won’t lose a thing but they would gain something in return; Jaehyun’s gratitude, Jaehyun’s smile, Jaehyun’s love. He has it in him to love the world, just a little more than he already does, he is willing to give it up if the world promises, sympathetic and sincere, that they’d wait for him to heal. And Jaehyun’s love is something that Taeyong is _dying_ to have.

Jaehyun’s affection is something he’s privy of but deprived at the same time. Taeyong would trade _anything_ , even the world itself for that precious emotion. But world is cruel as it is loving, and while it loves Jaehyun, it loves the others just the same. It would wait for Jaehyun if it didn’t mean it sacrifices the others.

The world makes it choice – had made it aeons ago before Jaehyun even graze the world with his tinny, adorable cry; he wouldn’t choose one over many. Every single life is equal, nobody deserves more than the rest, nobody deserves less than the rest. If it is fair to the others, then it should be fair to Jaehyun as well. To not wait for him, to not pause and continues forward. To let itself comes propelling to Jaehyun, bruising his already wounded heart, crashing to his already crumbling heart before Jaehyun’s trembling hands can even touch to contain it.

So Taeyong hates the world, because it is being _fair_ toward Jaehyun, because he refuses Jaehyun’s love, because it walks on, ignoring Jaehyun’s offered hands under its nose, and crushes his heart beneath his feet.

And Taeyong would turn to time except time is just as heartless, then there he is, alone, tiny and powerless with Jaehyun crying in his helpless arms. Jaehyun’s fingers are clutching the fabric of his shirt tightly as if he’d fall if he let go.

He has fallen – he _is_ falling, they both knows. So maybe, maybe Jaehyun is not actually holding on to keep himself from falling. Maybe Jaehyun is holding on him, on Taeyong, because falling together feels better than falling alone. A small voice in his head chides him, telling him that Jaehyun is not so evil to take someone down with him. But his heart says that Taeyong doesn’t mind falling, as long as it’s with Jaehyun, as long as it means he can protect him even if he failed to _safe_ him. If that’s all he can do – all he is left to do - then he will fulfil his duty, his calling; to protect Jaehyun away from harm, to fall with him because the world is too busy to pick them back up.

He wounds his arms around Jaehyun’s shaking body, wrapping the right one around his torso and the left cradling the back of Jaehyun’s head. Tender. Loving. Honest and true to every single thing he feels for the younger man. He buries his head in the crook of Jaehyun’s neck, pressing Jaehyun’s head deeper to his own so they’re breathing each other in – Jaehyun breathes lemon and cardamom, Taeyong lavender and warm cedar.

With every inhales he is taking a part of Jaehyun in, letting it floors his lungs, fills it full to the brim, but still leaving him wanting for more, _needing_ more. So he breathes in, again, feeling more alive with each expand of his lungs. It’s as if any air that doesn’t come from inside Jaehyun is toxic while at the same time Taeyong is intoxicated with Jaehyun and his sweet, sweet enthralling scent. He breathes him in like he wants to be one with Jaehyun, he cannot survive in this venomous world if his cell doesn’t feed from Jaehyun, if he is not constructed of and kept alive by Jaehyun.

And hopes, from the deepest trench of his heart, that Jaehyun is feeling the same – that every intake of Taeyong saves him, that every intake of Taeyong revives a part of him that was brutally killed by world relentless. That Taeyong makes him live; that Taeyong becomes one with him, is a part of him, and that is the only reason why he is still standing even though he is technically falling.

Jaehyun cries harder. The wrecked voice echoes, bounces off the wall and returns to them like horrible crash, sending heart already mangled splintered apart. It destroys Taeyong just like seeing Jaehyun cries ravages him. It tears Taeyong apart, one by one, limb by limb, flesh by flesh. Listening to the cry of his loved one is like being stripped to his very bones. Bare fingers, blunt nails, digging deep to his flesh, digging wounds, pulling.

Taeyong would have scream in agony if it wasn’t for Jaehyun’s wail that reminds him that he isn’t the one who has it harder – it’s Jaehyun. Jaehyun is falling down in terrifying speed, breaking apart even faster. Taeyong needs to hold him together so when he finally crash to the bottom, there will be someone to pick Jaehyun up, gather and assemble him together. Not the same, missing something, but anew.

He might not be a white, blank paper. Not a new page in a sketchpad, but an old one with sketch unsatisfying enough that you decided to scrub your rubber harshly to erase them. When you’re done you will be left with a worn page and stubborn, black pencil smudge on the corner. This page is not as empty but has enough empty space to draw on, it’s ready to have you fill them with sketch even more beautiful than the previous one.

Taeyong needs to be – _has_ to be that person with pencil gripped between his fingers. Taeyong has to redraw, makes the paper beautiful again even if for him, Jaehyun will always be beautiful, pencil smudges or no. It’s his love but the world doesn’t have that share in them, so it can’t see what Taeyong sees when he sees Jaehyun.

So Taeyong curses the world, and the time, and the trash excuse of cowardice people who dared to string those atrocious, cruel, and heartless words with Jaehyun’s name. He condemns them, and prays to the being that is as fair as world and time; God, for those people to be punished equally with the sin they have committed. Sin called maiming Jaehyun’s baby-tender heart.

In the dark of the room, in the little sanctuary that they couldn’t have more than ephemeral five hours, in the tangle of limbs and breathes wet from tears, Taeyong wishes, so fervently and more sincere that he ever did in his twenty something of years, for God to be their last remaining fortress, and is willing to take them in under His ever so merciful wings. Even if not them, then Jaehyun.

Because Jaehyun is the incarnation of all things good and golden who belongs in the white, pristine castle of God, and Taeyong isn’t. He is black, rust on the chains charred. Even if Jaehyun ever so desperately said he is not, even if Jaehyun would say that while looking at him with eyes shining like Taeyong is the one who created the whole universe, Taeyong knows in fact he is.

He cannot be saved – not one to be saved, not even by Jaehyun’s welcoming, forgiving arms. He had committed his sin and he is ready to face the punishment. So let the world and time come to him, vengeful and ruthless. Let them sink their poisonous blades on Taeyong’s skin and crush his bones. He would welcome them, as long as they’re nowhere near Jaehyun’s delicate, exquisite heart.

But then in his arms, Jaehyun shifts. In his arms, Jaehyun speaks, and when his quiet words travel up to Taeyong’s ears and down to his heart, Taeyong knows that even if God leave him out, Jaehyun would not.

“I won’t,” Taeyong vows in answer of those three, binding words. “I swear I won’t leave you.”

In his arms, Jaehyun smiles, and Taeyong doesn’t even need to switch up the light to be able to see because Jaehyun is the light himself, and in the darkest of deepest abyss, Taeyong can always see him.

And Jaehyun is, maybe, the world and the time as well. Because he is fair, because he is unforgiving, because he is everything that Taeyong wishes to love and be loved in return. Because even if he knows seeing him in agony like this is akin to killing Taeyong even in his death, he doesn’t let go, never letting go.

Taeyong wonders if this is his punishment. He also wonders if he minds it being so.

Jaehyun calls his name once again, each syllable rich with unadulterated need; raw, undecorated, just a pure despair and necessities. Taeyong presses a kiss to Jaehyun’s slick, sweaty forehead, hidden beneath messy and equally wet hair, thinking; _he doesn’t mind._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've known abt NCT since a year ago but never really got into them until 9 days ago. I thought I'd love JohnTen but then I saw their video during MAMA and HA HA HA, I sold my soul to them. I mean; all? the? touches? and? stares? Then, I - a being that live for angst and more angst - read all fanfics existing in this tag and thinks; we definitely need MORE angst, and decided to actually write it. Stop me. Someone need to stop me.


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